I started this project some time ago, back when I thought it would be fun to learn the Klingon language as presented in Marc Okrand's The Klingon Dictionary and as heard in the various Star Trek movies and series. As I went through my studies of Klingon, I became fascinated with the concept of "fictional languages" and my favorite green-skinned ice-dwellers, the Dezorians, came to mind. To make a long story short, I began to develop the Dezorian language, but I resisted posting any of my work until it was a completely functional language.

Many months later, I can see now that I lack both the time and, most probably, the patience required to reach that extensive a goal. However, considering that Dezorian has already appeared in some of my fanfics, and inspired by the Introduction to Palmalatin page found at Neilast's Beyond Algo website, I now present this most basic of lessons on the probably always to be a work-in-progress Dezorian language.

All of my knowledge regarding the Dezorian language comes from one source, and that source has insisted on introducing himself here to all of you. He feels that for all the training he's given me regarding the Dezorian language (which, by the way, is called duTorus^oor buvikvaa in Dezorian), the least I owe him is a chance to introduce the lessons contained herein. I fully agree -- perhaps it will help to explain to you, student of Dezorian, why so little about the language is currently known.

A little while ago, something happened that I never thought possible. What was it, you ask? I found someone who didn't find my jokes to be funny? Ha! That most definitely is impossible. No, this is something that I thought would never happen but yet I acknowledged that it could. And recently, it did! I actually found something in this galaxy more funny than my sense of humor! Now I know, human, that you're no doubt wondering what this could possibly be, and so now, because I am highly virtuous, I will tell you.

It's the way you people talk! Ha ha ha! Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? But it's true. You people talk so strange -- especially all of you mechanical dolls out there. If it wasn't for that blue-haired wizard casting some sort of translation magic (I could have done it myself, but frankly, I didn't feel like it, ha ha!) I wouldn't have understood a word they said!

But, I forgive them. After all, they saved my life and saved the galaxy -- because the galaxy no doubt would have fallen apart without me to keep it company. Ha! You, however, have no excuse. That is why I have officially endorsed this instruction manual in the Dezorian language, what we call duTorus^oor buvikvaa. I know it all looks like gibberish now, but read these lessons and soon you'll find it's your primitive language that's the gibberish around here. So there! Now I'm off to find a drink.

PS: Why did the Dezorian Penguin cross the road? Give up? So he could learn our lanmguage! Ba ha ha! I'm just too much for myself!

Ahem. Perhaps now, folks, you understand what I have to go through to get new information regarding Dezorian. Nevertheless, Raja continues to teach me (as long as I continue to buy the drinks), so any new information I receive will be passed on to everyone. In the meantime, though, here's what I've managed to learn so far:

Symbol Key:

Words and letters in bold are Dezorian.

Words and letters in italics are English.

Pronunciations are found between a pair of reversed virgules: \ \

Alphabet and Pronunciation:

There are 29 characters in the Dezorian alphabet: eighteen consonants, ten vowels, and one "spaceholder."

The eighteen consonants are:b c d f g j k K l m n p r s t T v w

It should be noted that there is no capitilization in Dezorian, so the letters k and K (as well as t and T) are entirelly different letters. For example: the Dezorian word for snow mountain is rooslimpek. If this word were to be spelled rooslimpeK, it would be like spelling English dog as doj or cat as cal.

As for pronunciation, most Dezorian consonants are the same as their English equivellants, but a few are worth mentioning.

Dezorian t is the same as English time or sister. Dezorian T, on the other hand, is pronounced much like the th sound found in English theater or thing, except slightly lengthened. Also note there is no z in Dezorian. Most English z sounds are made using T in Dezorian.

The Dezorian letters c, k, and K are similar to one another but each has its own distinct sound. First, c is never used in cases such as English citrus; in these cases, s will always be used. Dezorian c sounds like the English letter k is pronounced when reciting the English alphabet: \kay\. Also, it is always followed by the vowel aa, much like English q is always followed by u. k is the same as the beginning sound in English clan or cart [\kuh\]. Finally, K sounds like the English k and r sounds run together, as in words such as crash or procrastinate; it is pronounced harshly, as well: \khhrr\.

Some English consonants are missing from the Dezorian alphabet, and x is one of them. This sound is usually spelled in Dezorian using a special character grouping (eKT) and it is pronounced \ekkthh\, rather than the English x sound \eks\. This character grouping violates most Dezorian syllable rules (explained below) but is, nonetheless, perfectly acceptable. Finally, English y is not found in Dezorian but a similar sound is found in another character grouping which violates rules: eeu, pronounced the same as the final two syllables of English panacea.

The ten Dezorian vowels are:a aa e ee i ii o oo u uu

In the English language, each of its five vowels has a short sound and a long sound; in Dezorian, each vowel has only one sound. For example, while Dezorian a is the same as English short a as in apple or compact, the English long a as in way or pave is represented by the Dezorian letter aa, which is not simply the letter a twice, but a letter completely different than a. In fact, in Dezorian handwriting, the letters a and aa look nothing alike. They are only romanized in this manner for ease of learning by non-native Dezorians.

Most other Dezorian vowels follow a similar pattern, except u and uu. The following table presents each Dezorian vowel with English examples of its sound.

a

apple, compact

aa

way, pave

e

red, sent

ee

see, week

i

tin, medical

ii

ride, dine

o

no, mosaic

oo

soon, prune

u

under, stuck

uu

Like the aww sound in awesome

Finally, every syllable of every Dezorian word consists either of:

(A) A consonant and a vowel, or

(B) A consonant, a vowel, and another consonant

In that order. Dezorian syllables never begin with a vowel.

Now, in the past, English translations of some Dezorian words have seemed to indicate that Dezorian words can, in fact, start with vowels, but this has turned out to merely be a quirk of translation. Take, for example, the English transliteration of the name of a Dezorian town: Aukba. It would seem, at first glance, that this Dezorian word starts with a vowel, in violation of Dezorian rules of grammar.

When the town's name is viewed in Dezorian, however, no such error is present. Aukba is spelled ^uukbu [\AWK-buh\] in Dezorian, so as you can see, it does not, in fact, start with a vowel. It starts with the twenty-ninth character of the Dezorian alphabet, the "spaceholder" ^.

^ is not classified as a consonant because it is a silent character without a pronunciation. However, in Dezorian syllable rules, it acts as a consonant. So, technically, the first pronounced sound of some Dezorian words is a vowel sound, but these words are never spelled with a vowel as the first letter. (Other examples include torch^al^iimiT [\aahl-EYE-mithh\] and plateau^ersi [\AIR-sih\].)

Nouns:

Like English, Dezorian contains simple nouns such as goomfire and rooslimmountain. Also like English, it contains compound nouns, such as melfuutesnowstorm which is made up of melsnow and fuutestorm.
Be aware, though, that while some nouns may appear to be compound nouns, they are not. Take, for example, a word mentioned earlier, rooslimpeksnow mountain. Though this word seems to include the noun rooslimmountain, there is no known noun pek in Dezorian, so this word can not be considered a compound noun.

Dezorian contains pronouns. Here is a listing:

I je
You de
He da
She di
It Ta
We be
You (plural) ga
They caa

Dezorian nouns, like English nouns, also may contain suffixes. Here are the known Dezorian noun suffixes:

-moo plural
Much like adding an s to the end of most English words, adding -moo to the end of most Dezorian nouns makes them plural. rees^ifriend can become rees^imoofriends, for example, or deeltown can become deelmootowns. However, just as there are exceptions in English (such as the plural of mouse being mice and not mouses), there are exceptions in Dezorian. The plural form of sidkintorture palace, for example, is not sidkinmoo but sidkin^ee. What brings about these exceptions is unknown.

-jas Locative: to, on, at, in
In English, seperate words are used to denote location: "in the store," "to our home," etc. In Dezorian, these concepts are expressed through suffixes. For example: jookjasto the house, kuronu peeTujasin Corona Tower, etc. Note that the suffix -jas, however, can be used for any of the listed locations. Thus, deeljas could mean "to the town," "on the town," "at the town," or "in the town." Context usually makes the intended meaning clear.

-jar Locative: near, by
This suffix functions much like -jas. Hence, valjar means "near the ice" or "by the ice."

-sed for, beneficiary
If something is the beneficiary of something else, this suffix is used. If the man (laak) is benefiting from something, laaksed is used. If someone is doing something "for the planet Dezoris," the noun duTorussed would be used.

-pum ownership
This suffix has a minor rule attached to it. The suffix may be attached to a proper noun with nothing further needed. Examples include ^iikootoopumIkuto's, goombee^us jooksejpumGumbious Temple's. However, if attached to a common noun, the suffix must be followed by a pronoun. For example, museetupummeseta's is meaningless. A meseta is a coin; it can not own anything. However, museetupumjemy meseta or museetupumdiher meseta is perfectly acceptable.

-gaat greater-maK lesser
These two suffixes are noun modifiers. At times, they can even be used to create new words. Examples:

These two suffixes, in special circumstances, can also be applied to verbs. See "Comparison Sentence Structures," below.

Verbs:

Dezorian verbs, like Dezorian nouns, may also take suffixes. Perhaps the most common verb suffixes are the tense suffixes. In Dezorian, a verb on its own with no suffixes is considered to be in present tense. To convey the sense that an action did occur, or that an action will occur, however, suffixes are required.

Aside from the suffixes of tense, there are very few Dezorian verb suffixes currently known:

-vaa thing which does
Though this suffix is used on verbs, its effect is the creation of a noun. For example, if the suffix -vaa is added to the verb kinsiifight, the noun kinsiivaafighter is created. It is interesting to note that this suffix is found in the name of the Dezorian language, duTorus^oor buvikvaa. The word buvikvaa does indeed mean language, but based on the verb buvikcommunicate, the word buvikvaa can also be translated as "thing which communicates."

-veet Adverb creator
Adding this suffix to an adjective turns it into an adverb. The adjective oonsanhappy becomes oonsanveethappilly, for example.

-roo Opposite of; undo
Raja has not yet given us much information regarding this verb suffix, so as of yet, it is unclear whether this suffix is merely a way to express that someone is not doing something, or if it means someone is clearly doing the opposite of the verb to which it is attached. For example, would adding this suffix to the verb vovfollow to create vovroo mean that the subject of the sentence is merely not following the object, or that the subject is "un-following," in essence, leading the subject, rather than following. Until Raja tells us more about -roo, it is suggested that students of Dezorian resist becoming too comfortable with it for risk of using it improperly.

It should also be mentioned that Dezorian verbs can take prefixes in the form of syntatic markers. These are used to form subordinate clauses, and they will be addressed in the next section.

Basic Sentence Structure:

The basic structure of a Dezorian sentence is:

SUBJECT - OBJECT - VERB

Note that this is quite different than English, in which sentences are written Subject, Verb, Object. For example, if the English sentence "Alis kills Lassic" were to be written with Dezorian sentence structure, it would read, "Alis Lassic kills."

Let us examine two Dezorian sentences.

kunsej laak TiKesbelaak kunsej TiKesbe

In both setences, the words are the same: kunsejbishop, laakman, and TiKesbesee. However, the message conveyed by the first sentence is "The bishop sees the man" while the second sentence reads, "The man sees the bishop."

Compound sentences may also be formed using the word ^eeuand. Take the example:

laak kunsej TiKesbe ^eeu laak kunsej pala.

which translates to The man sees the bishop and the man greets him (palagreet). This sentence could also be written with pronouns:

laak kunsej TiKesbe ^eeu de de pala.

This translates to The man sees the bishop and he greets him. Note that the pronouns for he and him are both de.

Subordinate clauses are written with syntatic markers attached to the verb as prefixes. There is also always a hyphen between the syntatic marker and the verb. Currently, the only syntatic marker known to us is neK, which means when. Using subordinate clauses, the above sentence about the man and the bishop may be rewritten as follows:

laak kunsej neK-TiKesbebin de de palabin.When the man saw the bishop, he greeted him.

Adjectives and adverbs are correctly placed directly before the noun or verb they modify. If more than one adjective or adverb is used, they are simply listed one after the other; ^eeuand is not needed to make the list gramatically correct.

"To be" sentence structures are written in Dezorian using the verb caad which means something along the lines of "exists as." The closest English word would be is.

reje caad laaksej.Raja is a priest.
Literally: Raja exists as a priest.

Note that this construction seems to violate Dezorian syntax; it would seem to be more correct if written: reje laaksej caad, yet this is, in fact, incorrect. It would seem that "to be" constructions using caad exist almost as clauses of their own.

Further, note that the Dezorian verb caad is very, very close to the first syllable in the word caampalakem'pallah, which is what Dezorians call the tall hats they all wear to denote their social status. What makes this interesting is that Raja points out that some Dezorian linguists argue that caam is an earlier version of the verb caad in use today, perhaps a version from an earlier dialect, in which case caampala almost becomes a compound noun: caam, the (possible) early version if caad; and pala, the Dezorian greeting. This would mean caampala literally means, "exists as a greeting," which is more or less an exact defintion of what the tall hats do. However, Raja warns that there is significant debate regarding this in linguistic circles, and that it is unwise to state as a fact that caampala means "exists as a greeting" unless you know for sure that the Dezorian you are speaking to agrees with you. Otherwise, you could end up in a no^uluTnever-ending debate.

Names and Phrases:

The following is a list of various Dezorian names, places, titles, etc. presented in proper duTorus^oor buvikvaa, as well as some non-Dezorian words that have been transliterated into Dezorian. For the meanings of some of these words, please refer to the Dezorian Reference Guide that was included with my Phantasy Star Ultimate novel Agent's Destiny.